


Three to Tango

by alaynerivers



Category: UnREAL (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-11 20:15:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9013330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alaynerivers/pseuds/alaynerivers
Summary: Adam picks Anna. Rachel is the showrunner on Royal Renovations. Something is bound to go wrong.





	

Adam wonders how he could have possibly decided that choosing to be on another reality show was a good idea. Anna is sitting and eating dinner, picking through her peas and ignoring the mashed potatoes entirely.

“Thanks, Adam. This food is delicious.”

“You’re welcome. What happened with the stable today? It seemed like a potential structural issue.”

“The architect said it might be. I’m not sure. Oh, Tony mentioned something about wanting to have a birthday party here next week.”

Rachel stands next to a camera, seemingly distracted by texts from Quinn or Chet or any of the other demons in charge of Adam’s hellscape. Adam keeps looking over at Rachel, though he’s not sure if it’s for direction or if it’s just to look.

“Thanks, Anna, I think we got the footage we need,” Rachel says, looking up from her phone and semi-smiling at Anna.

 

 

“She’s throwing up again, you know,” Rachel tells him later.

“No shit. I don’t follow her around with a camera, but I do sleep next to her. Sometimes.”

“Well, I’m worried about her.”

“Are you really?”

Rachel shoots him a look somewhere between hurt and complacent. He knows that however much Rachel cares about Anna, is friendly with Anna, Rachel does her job well.

Also, Rachel occasionally has sex with him. Anna wouldn’t like Rachel if she knew that.

“Just talk to her. Maybe you can convince her to open up or go to a therapist or something.”

With Rachel, Adam always has to parse angles. He’s good at this, but Rachel is still hard to read. Is this a caring gesture or a ploy to make Anna’s eating disorder a more prominent plot point?

 

 

Today, cameras are filming the renovation happening. B camera is in San Francisco, where Anna is meeting with interior decorators about concept art or statement pieces or something. Adam will go over some design choices with her later. They might also work on a segment with wedding planning decisions, and Adam is supposed to disagree with Anna about the venue. In reality, he could care less.

Right now though, Adam is currently sitting in Rachel’s office, and her head is in his lap as they sit on her couch. His hands are stroking her hair, and he feels about as calm and like himself as he has since he met Quinn or Chet or whoever started this domino wreck.

“Ugh, it was the worst. Can you imagine taking the GREs drunk?” Rachel is talking and even laughing. Adam’s still not used to it.

“Yes, I have been completely plastered in front of foreign dignitaries. Also, stoned once. I don’t recommend it. That’s why you didn’t go to grad school?”

“Tell me that story later. But… no, I got a good enough score. I got into a few MFA programs.”

“What happened then?”

“I couldn’t take on that kind of debt. And I wanted to go out there, and change things. Make American culture less toxic. Save puppies. I didn’t want to wait.”

Adam goes quiet at that, as he tends to when Rachel’s bitterness and self-loathing come to the forefront.

“I’m sorry that didn’t happen.”

“Sure, you are, honey.” The sarcasm drips off her voice and onto her face.

“Rachel, you know I-”

Rachel reaches up, pulls him down to kiss her. It’s a distraction, but he understands and obliges. Five minutes later, Rachel is moaning instead.

 

Rachel and Anna are in fact, friends of a sort. Today, Anna is in Rachel’s office, and they’re talking about how Anna is going to do a fundraiser for an immigrant advocacy organization she volunteered with at while she was at Brown as a part of the next episode. They are discussing the importance of comprehensive social services in all seriousness until Rachel mentions that she has booked tickets for Anna and Adam to a performance of Twelfth Night.

“It’s helpful to show how culture is a place where you connect with Adam,” Rachel says either truthfully or ludicrously.

Adam sits unobtrusively, waiting to discuss the finances of the renovations. If Rachel weren’t his secret girlfriend (or whatever she is), he would have interrupted by now. He is not sure whether or not he likes this gesture. He likes theater on occasion, and he does prefer the classics.

On the other hand, he has no words for this situation, cannot bring himself to thank Rachel for planning this date, and cannot ask Anna if they can move on to the topic at hand, which is how to manage the repair costs.

Rachel dislikes Shakespeare. She tells him that in so many words when he comes back in tux and tails, and fucks him in the bathroom that adjoins Anna’s suite. It’s heedless to do this, but Adam’s always been reckless.

He always wonders how far things will have to go with Rachel before everything breaks.

 

 

Rachel calls Poppy, Adam’s ex-fiancée, and brings her onto the show. Adam asks her if she’s gone insane.

“It’s reality television, Adam. We need drama or else no one will watch. And then no one will come to the vineyard.”

When she says this, it sounds sensible. Then again, Adam’s secret girlfriend (label technically t.b.d.) has brought in his former fiancée to create drama with his fake fiancée.

“It’ll make a good love triangle. Adam, you were on Everlasting. You know how popular Team Anna and Team Grace became.”

“The last thing we need here is a bloody love triangle.”

“Then just reject Poppy, tell her to fly home and that you’re over her. I can work with that.”

Now Adam understands. Or maybe he understands.

“Rachel, is this about us? Do you want me to reject Poppy so you’ll know I’m over her?”

Rachel purses her lips, and gives a nonchalant shrug. “Why would I care, Adam?”

Adam thinks of a couple reasons. None would make Rachel honest in this moment. Time to play. “Well, then maybe I should be courteous. Say hi, while being appropriately English.”

“Well, we’ll see how Anna reacts. As long as it’s good TV.”

Adam sighs. He thinks he lost this round.

 

 

Poppy stays. Anna is quietly unhappy about this, and Adam can see Rachel pulling and pushing her into some sort of outburst. He knows that means it will come, and possibly pretty quickly.

Adam and Poppy come from the same background. Poppy is the second daughter of a baron, and she’s sharp, blunt, and gorgeous. Selling Adam to the tabloids is the most manipulative stunt she’s ever pulled, and even that was somehow brazen.

Even with that, she called him right after the show ended, told him it was payback, but then said that they could start fresh. She said she wasn’t sure she still loved him, but he was a part of her life. Why was he filming another appalling show, in any case? She said he could come back to London and stay with her.

That was in the short period of time between the end of Everlasting and the start of Royal Renovations. Adam sublet a dingy apartment in Los Angeles for two months and Rachel crashed there most nights. When Rachel was there, they drank incessantly, marathoned a strange combination of classic films and reality television, and had sex constantly. Saying no to Poppy was easy.

 

One night, about a week into Poppy’s stay, Anna calls Poppy a heartless bitch in the middle of a segment about wallpaper choices in the tasting room. Anna rails into Poppy for a full ten minutes about leaving Adam and selling him out to StarCatcher, as Adam overhears everything. Poppy waits silently until Anna is quiet, replies with “Darling, I’m not your problem. You’re not mine either.” She leaves the room. Anna fumes quietly. Adam walks in as Poppy walks out, and sees Rachel smiling on the sidelines.

 

Poppy knows that something here is off. She calls Adam out on this after Anna’s Villaingate, her accent as always more affected than his.

“For Heaven’s sake, darling. Why are you engaged to Anna? I like the girl well enough, but you barely look at her. Have you two even had sex yet? She looks at you like a moony virgin.”

Poppy says this with her usual lack of tact. She is known in upper-crust circles as a stubborn woman who will happily say what everyone else is only thinking. She is uncompromising. Adam suddenly and sharply misses that about her.

“Poppy, that’s just ridiculous. Of course, I had sex with Anna. The whole bleeding country knows that I had sex with Anna.”

Poppy is looking at him up and down, looking for the lie. When she spots none, she sighs. “What’s wrong then?”

Adam wishes he could be the playboy, could pretend like sex was the goal and the only games played involved getting past bases. The game he’s in now involves a longer haul and he is becoming someone worse than the playboy and asshole he already was. His face contorts into something like resentment combined with all of the bullshit his life currently entails.

Poppy looks him up and down, and just nods. “I don’t know what this is, but you’re in over your head. I can’t help you now.

 

 

Poppy leaves the next day. She tells Anna it was lovely to meet her, and she is being sincere. Adam has no idea if Poppy knows about Rachel.

At this point, he is past caring. There are only the games he plays, and the games that he will have to keep playing.


End file.
